caughtinanetwork

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For those of you who might give a fuck, Jake English is gone from the bubble again.
The kid's going to earn himself a title of flighty broad, at this rate.
Maybe the third time's the charm, if our "great and powerful God" deigns to deliver him a third time.
I rather suspect that it's too busy quoting Dirty Harry at us and our delightful circumstance.

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Tell you what, I'll leave off the fish flavors if you leave off pumpkin.

[It's not that he doesn't like that flavor, it's just that someone has said something to him about pumpkins in a convoluted circumstance that basically boils down to reminding him of Jake.]

I can accede the literal million cherries, though.

You don't like pumpkin?

[But that is totally the best flavor. Still, he's sure Dirk has his reasons.]

Deal. So everything but fish and pumpkin but all the cherries you have please!

[The clerk behind the counter gives them both a bit of a wary look, but gets about scooping a heaping helping of each flavor in a giant oval bowl. This is going to take awhile.

In the meantime, Sola looks over at Dirk. He wants to help him feel better, and he's never really been one for subtlety...]

I'm sure he didn't mean to leave. No one really means to, it just happens.

It's a long story involving a complete dickhead, but for now it'll suffice to say I don't like pumpkin.

[Dirk rests an elbow on the counter as he watches the clerk scooping ice cream.]

I'm fully cognizant of that fact. Besides, he's already been decked across the face once for leaving and coming back. I can treasure that circumstance whether or not he comes back a third time.

[It takes Sola a long moment of staring at Dirk to realize cognizant isn't in his vocabulary just yet. Excuse him while he pulls a dogeared dictionary out of his sylladex to check what it means before responding.]

Wait, if you're aware of it then why would you be happy that he got punched if it's not his fault?

[Wow, that's hilariously adorable. Sola is 2 kawaii 4 lyfe, Dirk almost can't handle it.]

Because it's a vindictive emotional response. You can't tell me you've never wanted to punch someone for something they weren't doing on purpose.

Wait, uhh...

[He leafs through his dictionary. Vindictive... ah, here it is.]

Umm... well, no, I have. Actually I used to get really mad at Link for being better at stuff than me. I got mad at Lloyd for that too even though it wasn't even a thing I cared about being good at.

It's technically the same kind of thing. Think of it as a bad but satisfying way of expressing emotions, if you want.

[Dirk grabs a plastic spoon from off the counter, and starts turning it over between his fingers, unintentionally fidgeting.]

It sucks. How come people have all these sucky emotions to go with the good ones?

[He reaches over and takes a straw from the same mish-mash container of cutlery and dining accessories Dirk retrieved his spoon and began to chew on the end thoughtfully.]

It doesn't make sense.

There's some biological imperative for it. Damn if I explain it quickly, though, so let's go with the philosophical explanation for now. Which is also bullshit, but what the hell. Basically, the idea is that if you didn't feel shitty sometimes, you wouldn't understand how lucky you are when you're actually happy.

[He shrugs.]

I think they underestimate people's ability to be miserable.

[He'll need to look up a bunch of those words later, but for now he thinks he gets the gist of what Dirk is saying.]

But isn't happy just a way you feel? Like sad or hungry or whatever? I don't see why bad has to happen for good to happen too, or sad and happy, or... whatever, like that.

[Dirk twirls the spoon between his fingers as he thinks.]

You ever eaten something sweet right after you ate something sour? Y'know how makes the sweet thing taste a lot more intense? It's like that, 'cept with life.

[He thinks about that for a moment, watching the spoon jump around Dirk's fingers.]

I guess that makes sense. It's not that happy isn't just happy, but you notice it more of something sad happened first.

[He watches the spoon for another long moment.]

You're really good at that.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

[Dirk glances down at his hands.]

I had a shitton of time to practice this when I was younger, because I spent a damn long time being bored as fuck.

Oh. Me too, but I didn't have any spoons. I mostly just went swimming a lot and played underwater hide and seek with Morpha.

[There's really not a lot to do when you're stuck in a temple with only a boss monster for company.]

I went swimming plenty myself. Didn't have anyone to play hide-and-seek with except a fuckton of fish, though.

There were a lot of fish in the temple too but they don't play hide and seek very good. I mean. Well.

[He's been corrected on that quite a bit.]

Morpha was too good though. He's part of the water, technically, and he can grab with his tentacles so I didn't really get to hide for long.

You telling me you played games with an honest to god tentacle monster? Holy shit.

[That actually gets Dirk to crack a smirk briefly.]

A tentacle monster you routinely got caught by.

[Dirk receives a blink of confusion for that reaction.]

Yeah...? Is that weird?

Depends on your definition of weird, but most people would consider it unusual at the least.

[Sola doesn't get the joke, and Dirk probably won't explain it, but at least Dirk seems to be in a better mood. Just in time for the ice cream, too.]

[Normally Sola might get defensive over such a reaction, but since the goal is to make Dirk feel better and that seems to be happening, he'll let it go this once.

Plus it's hard to get pissy and defensive when a sundae the size of a mountain is set in front of you.]

Awesome!

First one to get brain freeze loses.

[And with that, Dirk is going to get started eating.]

You're on!

[Sola dives into the sundae ~~head~~ spoon first and with aplomb.]

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